The Greatest Love Story Never Told
by Mercurian Orchid
Summary: The line between love and hate is a thin one, if any at all. An interhouse relationship smudges the line enough to make it tolerable to one but inexplicable to the other. A story in six acts. Angelina Montague
1. ACT 1 ANGELINA

Disclaimer: None of the characters re mine. Cheers to JKR for wonderful peripheral characters we can play with.

Should say a thanks to **luckylily** for inspiring me with her fantastic fic, Mark of Montague, and some of the other great Angelina writers out there – **redcandle17**, **quiddie15**, **puddlemere surprise** and **cupiditatis.** Cheers, people : ) and enjoy.

ACT 1 - ANGELINA

She was the good girl made to be broken.

That was always how she liked to think of herself. The perfect Gryffindor. The perfect Quidditch captain. The perfect student. The perfect daughter. The list went on and on for miles in Angelina's head. So she reasoned it out that one little mishap was allowable.

When it became two, she put it down to a hidden weakness that was foreign to her, one that she wouldn't succumb to again.

When it became three she knew that she wasn't the girl she thought she was.

And when it became four – she knew she was in some serious trouble.

"_You can't walk away from this - you're trying to run, Johnson and it's getting you no where but a dead-end, sweetheart." He had said it quietly, while they were lying in his bed in London over summer vacation, his words slightly mumbled as he only lifted his lips occasionally from her skin._

_She had sat bolt up right and demanded that he stay away from her, that he stop looking at her like _**that**_, and Merlin forbid if he ever thought about touching her again._

_He had just smirked, one of the many things that enticed her to his sugar and salt personality, and pressed her hard into the bed for an unbearably sweet kiss. "I'll never let you go, Angelina." Each word murmured softly against her skin and punctuated with kisses. She felt the small smile curl his lips rather than saw it. "At least, not without a scene."_

_That was him in a nutshell, all hard edges, and when you least expected it, his personality chucked a curve ball at you. _

Angelina Johnson was a chaser. In all senses of the word. She went after what she wanted and got it. Always. And if it didn't happen that way, she would tweak it so the outcome was to her liking anyway. Being a chaser – she always liked the game. And when it was dangerous, and with a person she hated, all the more fun for her. It was a secret vice that no one knew about her, and one that she hid well, coated in the competition of Quidditch and house rivalry and tempered by the wilder antics of some of her house mates.

"_Ange, come on – we're going to miss Hogsmeade if you don't get you arse into gear!" Katie was already pulling Alicia along by her coat as she looked back at Angelina, standing indecisively at the doors of the main hall. Fred and George had already taken the first train in, eager to begin their mischief – after all, a whole day to be had away from Hogwarts – away from any real form of authority…_

"_I better not go…I've got that Potions essay to do…and some plays to run over."_

"_Ange," Alicia sang out, "all work and no play, is making you a _**very**_ dull girl."_

_She just grinned, stuck her tongue out at them and closed the door. They all knew there would be trips to Hogsmeade a plenty once exams were finished. The smile slipped off her face as she felt a hard, sinewy arm snake around her waist and a voice, low and velvety in her ear, "if only they knew the games you play, Johnson, if only they knew."_

_And later, lying in his bed, looking at him out of the peripheries of her vision she sees herself falling into something she can't stop. Or won't. And for the life of her, she couldn't understand why. _

Casting her eyes down the Gryffindor table she caught the glance Fred was slewing her way. She held his gaze for a couple of moments and then dropped her own. He excited her and at the same time made her feel like she was still waiting for something more. He was sweet, funny, irresponsible – a boy in all senses of the word and he adored her. She slung her eyes hard right and caught the gaze of her arch nemesis. Her dearest enemy. He raised an eyebrow tauntingly and dropped an eyelid at her teasingly. She felt the flush creep up her neck, and slipped her hand up, hoping to staunch it somehow and stop it filtering through.

Bastard. He was nothing but a filthy bastard who was a sadist. A bastard sadist. That's what she would call him the next time she was alone with him. She imagined his smirk of amused surprise that the _perfect_ girl would stoop so low as to swear. He would find it funny and laugh at her until that riled her up even further.

They say that opposites attract. She was scared that if she looked at them closely enough, they would come to the conclusion they weren't that opposite.

_He sighed and looked at her, his fingers massaging his temples as if the thought of her with him gave him a headache. Which it probably did. She surmised with a little inner smirk. He tapped the spoon idly against the table, lost for words. Which wasn't that unusual when the subject had nothing to do with Quidditch. _

"_Do you know what you're doing, Ange?"_

"_Yes."_

"_You know who his family is?"_

"_Yes."_

"_Do you know the others would kill you if they found out?" Here, her composure broke and she looked at the soft brown eyes, full of compassion at her predicament and - could that be understanding? In the eyes of the boy who almost hated Slytherin's more than he loved Quidditch?_

_Yes." She whispered softly, and watched as Oliver lay his hand over hers, and gave it a gentle squeeze._

"_And I know it would kill you if you let him go now, Ange. You're too far gone, love." He sighed again, and slung his arm companionably around her shoulders, pulling her in close. _

"_Yes…I know." And the little inner smirk dissolved, the inner lip wobbled and bit itself, as it tried to prevent the telltale tears that always came with a revelation of unexpected compassion from an unexpected ally._


	2. ACT 2 MONTAGUE

Meh. Disclaimers. I seriously wouldn't even begin to imagine these two are my own so much so the life they've taken on.

Cheers to the reviewers; **angelface04 **– I can but try and keep you happy : ), **hpfan000** – thanks for the review, and I do agree, danger.angel is another great AJ author…, and thanks to **wayweird** and **angelina-fan** – hugs!

I'm editing each chapter as I go, adding a little here, and curbing a little there, so bear with me. xo

ACT 2 - MONTAGUE

She had wrapped him up in the packaging of her guilt, and decorated him with the ribbons of her lies. Montague was the antithesis of everything that she stood for and he revelled in it.

He had wanted her from the first game of the season, when she had shoved him so hard during a Quidditch match that he actually had to grip onto his broom reasonably tightly to hold on. They had just been rivals before that. Souls that had brushed against each other occasionally, piquing an obnoxious interest in the other, but never enough to spark.

It was a first for him, and had intrigued him enough to belt her hard on his next shot at her. to leave her hanging precariously on _her_ broom. Her team had sworn and raved, and she had just narrowed her eyes at him, promising retribution and more.

A challenge if ever there was one, and Montague was never one wary of throwing the gloves off if asked.

It had also made him look at her more closely – on the premise of sizing up the competition, he had promised himself. Made him notice the lithe form, the glinting eyes and the perfect, wide smile. Made him watch when she bent over to laugh at someone's joke at the dining hall and admire the smooth, contoured line of her figure, albeit if from behind a Daily Prophet or a heavy textbook.

"_So if you had to pick one of those birds to shag, which one?" Flint flicked his gaze over to the girl's study table. Their heads were clustered over a scroll, and Katie was trying not to giggle. Angelina however, was having no success at muffling her laughter, and it pealed out across the study hall. She clapped her hand to her mouth and flung a startled, apologetic look at Professor McGonagall. _

"_Spinnet – I reckon she'd be a goer any day – all that blond hair - wouldn't you like to check out if she's a real blond?" Warrington grinned at the boys and grabbed at his crotch crudely while the rest of them rolled their eyes and grinned._

"_Yeah, you know you would!" Warrington laughed at them._

_Montague still found his gaze irresistibly drawn to Johnson. As if aware of his gaze, she looked around, and rubbed her neck and the side of her face in irritation._

"_I'd want to take a crack at Johnson. That girl's got legs for Africa, and an arse you could - " He paused mid thought as Angelina turned her head sharply, caught his assessing gaze and held it. He threw a mock kiss at her and found his lips curling up in a tenuous shit-eating grin – almost of their own accord. _

_She flipped him the bird. _

_And threw a kiss right back at him._

It had made him bait her all the more, fling the most abusive taunts her way he could think of, and every time she would laugh and walk away with that superior look, made him feel like the lowest being alive.

Made him bore holes in her head during potions, and then when she would turn, eyes narrowed, he would just try and stare her down, challenging her to Merlin knows what. He never remembered who won.

Made him almost chuck up when he realised that he fancied her – and not in a little way either, in a 'had to have her' way, that made him want to belt Weasley till he couldn't anymore, and thump all the other bastards who fancied her as well.

It had made him feel something inexplicable, something that he had only ever felt once in his life and then refused to feel again, for 'love' was for cowards, and 'fear', well, fear was the splinter that had hurt, only for a second, when he realised it was something stronger than 'fancy' he felt for her.

"_So why aren't you running the gauntlet with all the other Gryffin-whores?" He jerked his head over to where Katie and Alicia were pulling Hermione and Ginny off into the corner of the ballroom, mischievous grins wreathing their faces._

"_Well, I've already thrown the glove down here, haven't I?" She retorted, and raised her goblet to take a sip of the pumpkin juice. She looked at him over the rim, and gave a secret little smile that he didn't understand. He wasn't sure whether it was tolerant amusement or a knowing grin about a future prank. _

_He just flicked an insincere smile at her and threw her the finger. _

"_Yeah, well, I don't want you here, Johnson. So you should just piss off back to your little lair, or whatever you people call it."_

"_Well, we call yours the snake pit, so I guess lair isn't too far off." She was wearing a red dress, spaghetti straps looping loosely over her shoulders and mesmerised he watched as one slid off. She slid tipsily nearer him, and he tried to maintain indifference, looking with apparent boredom to either side of himself, and supporting himself with his palms flat against the wall. _

_No one was watching. _

_His eyes met hers. She was so close to him that the cup was brushing his tie every so often. He'd never noticed, but her eyes were so dark, they almost looked black. _

"_What are you playing at Johnson?" He tilted his head down towards her, his tone challenging and this side of snide. Nothing more out of the normal than what he normally used with her. _

_She actually tilted her head up. He was careful not to start back in surprise. They hadn't broken each others gaze for what seemed like an age, his blue one locked on her black. _

_Her expression cleared and she put one foot back, rocking on her heel. Never breaking his gaze. Then her lips quirked up in a cute half smile._

"_Not something I think I'll win, Montague." She muttered, almost disbelievingly, and under her breath, so quietly that he thought he'd misheard it. She turned, and walked away quickly, a slight sway to her hips that he'd never noticed before, leaving Montague to stare after her bare back with a tattooed thorny black rose winking at him behind the cowl of her dress._

"_Fuck me." He whispered to himself, trying as always, when it came to Johnson, to fight down that almost overwhelming surge of lust, confusion and dislike that threatened to overtake him. _

_And later on, dancing with Parkinson, Bulstrode and Greengrass, he found his eyes always distracted back to the laughing figure in red who always somehow managed to stay in his line of vision. _

_The bint knew what she was doing, that's for sure. And then, watching her apparent disinterest of him, the negligent little thought eased into his head that maybe, just _**maybe,**_ it was him who was always tracking her, rather than the other way round. _

_And that thought, well, that thought just made him want to hurl. _


	3. ACT 3 ANGELINA

Heya, thanks again for the reviews. Am trying to update asap but am on nights, so bear with me.

ACT 3 - ANGELINA

When had it all started? She could say she had been stressed. Worried about Quidditch. Worried about exams. All the crap that was going on in school. All those excuses condensed into one horribly undeniable fact for her. She had wanted him. That was the starting point for them.

The ending point for her.

_Leaning a touch arrogantly against the wall, his T-shirt ripped along the hem._

_She remembered staring at the rip with annoyance. That offended her for some reason – or maybe she was just looking to pick a fight with him – anything better than looking the rips and twists in her own personality that had allowed her to be drawn into playing his strange little game like this. _

"_Do you want something?" It came out more coldly than she expected. He raised an eyebrow, and inclined his head slightly towards the window that faced the Quidditch pitch. "I was wondering if you were OK. Flint took you out pretty hard in the last practice game." _

_She didn't know what to say. It seemed like such an innocent statement, but for the last couple of months, the verbal sparring had been layered with something that she wasn't prepared to admit to. Not here, anyway. Not _**now**

_She settled for shrugging her shoulders. He just looked at her._

_Although his face remained blank, she saw shifts of expression, fleeting, and imagined that it was the ghost of a smile that danced across his face. _

_She ground the word out, each letter seemingly bit out. "Thanks."_

"_No problem." His face was expressionless. The blue eyes seemingly bored and slightly glazed._

_She made to move past him, towards the main hall, he looked like he was going to block her way for a couple of seconds, but then he shifted ever so slightly. _

_Her skin whispered against his, like two pages that had been stuck together for years, and were being forced to separate._

"_Move."_

"_I don't want to, Johnson." It was soft and dangerous. He knew just as well as she that the spark had started to flicker a little more._

"_Do you want me to make you?" Her eyes glimmered up at him, unafraid and challenging as the lion she prided herself on representing. She was a few inches shorter than him, and a hell of a lot lighter. He snickered and took a step towards her, so close now, he had to crane his neck down to meet her gaze. So close that if she turned slightly, her body would move into his hands._

_It was the feel of her hand sliding into his shirt, trailing down his stomach ever so slowly, that appeared to make his decision up for him. She suddenly found herself jammed between his body and the wall. His hands slid down to cup her face and force her to look up at him. "Are you sure?" Her answer was a kiss, sweet, gentle, lingering and strangely apologetic, as if regretful of time wasted. His kiss was anything but gentle. Hard, punishing and intensely erotic, it was a culmination of a year of pent up desire for her, his tongue pushing into her mouth, hard, demanding and hot._

Why she understood him so well was something she never voiced. It was her way of giving him space – before it had all became too messy, it was her way of letting him deny that this _thing _between them existed. She never felt completely free of him. She knew when he was looking at her from the other side of the hall, knew that behind the benign little stares he tossed her way oh so casually, there was an unspoken promise. Sometimes it lay between them in bed, trailed after his fingers as they moved idly over her skin, with no real purpose except to torture her senses.

"_I wish…" Her eyes flashed angrily at him, although she knew it wasn't him she was angry with – it was herself, for letting a base emotion control her. _

"_You wish?" He goaded her, as they sat, on opposite ends of the couch, his legs stretched indolently out ahead of him, and head tilted back, eyes closed. Her legs were curled over his, her heels tucked underneath his thigh._

"_You're just – you're a dead end for me, really. In all senses. This can never go anywhere but here." Here, she gestured wildly around the room. _

_He slid closer to her, and she felt fingers, warm and soft against the nape of her neck._

"_But here's the safest place, Johnson."_

_She twisted her head so his fingers caught in her long dark hair and threw him a scornful look. _

"_What are you thinking, Montague? Are you thinking we can walk out of here," here, she laughed lightly and then closed her eyes in self correction, "are you thinking I can walk out of here whole? Reputation intact? Respect intact?" She left the other phrase silent, yet it was the one that echoed the loudest in her thoughts and the one she knew he _**must**_ have seen in her eyes. Could she, would she, walk out of here with her heart intact?_

She knew she thought too much with him, with them, but she had to. She had to know why everything that she had ever believed of herself had suddenly betrayed her into his arms. She had to figure out why she didn't try and stop it, and why she let it get as far as she had.

At the back of her head, she always wondered if this was a dare he'd been put up to. That one day, it would all fragment apart into shame and guilt and anger. That Slytherins would sneer and laugh at the poor stupid little Gryff, and that Gryffindors would shun the traitor amongst their midst, always whispering behind their hands about 'that scandalous Gryffindor girl'.

He was waiting for the day when he could finally say he had broken her, and relish in the victory – of that she was sure.


	4. ACT 4 MONTAGUE

I'm so sorry about this. I could give a complicated excuse about house buying, visa traumas, and work, but it really is no excuse xx Thanks for all the reviews, once again, sorry I made you wait so long.

ACT 4 - MONTAGUE

She was breaking him – slowly but surely. Breaking everything about him – his dreams, his aspirations and even muddying the waters of his future, with her eyes, her body and her words. She was intoxicating, and it frightened him how strongly he felt about her. That would be the only word that he allowed to be used now in his head to describe the emotion he felt for her. _Strong_. It had bled across the colours of their houses and seeped into all the hidden places in his personality that hadn't been chinked up with words like 'pure-blood' and 'Voldemort' and 'dementors' and 'mud-blood' and 'the dark mark'.

After the vanishing cupboard episode, she had tried to remould his personality in little ways that smacked of Gryffindor, and then, came to her senses and avoided him, thinking this was her chance to ''break free'', while he couldn't remember and while he didn't want her. It didn't work, like he was the drug and she the drug seeker, as his memory came back in bits, so their relationship reappeared, to entwine them both until they were closer than ever.

After Hogwarts it had become alarming to the point that he left, and then found himself outside her flat in London a week later, irises in hand, and in turns abjectly apologetic and charmingly sweet. She had been bitterly sarcastic and reticent in her acceptance, and then it all slipped away when he took her into his arms and she melted against him in that peculiar way she had, and he felt what he had missed in his time away – home.

_She turned up at his family home in London, uninvited. It happened more than once. In fact, it happened often enough that his mother knew who she was, and knew she took two sugars in her tea and 'just a splash of milk'._

_When he had reciprocated the un-invitation, she wasn't in her flat, and looking at her fireplace and the tracing of ash on the carpet, he surmised that she had taken a trip. Using an old year book and a bit of luck, he chanced the floo network and found himself on a hearth in a room in one of the most pricey estates in Exeter._

"_What are you doing here?" She was curled up all cat like and he marvelled at the grace of her pose even as he smirked at her and sauntered arrogantly over to where she lay._

"_Just thought I'd drop in. Nice digs, sweetheart. Didn't realise Daddy raked it in so well." He grinned and dropped a light kiss on her lips. She pulled away and pushed him hard. "My Dad's dead, you prick. My Mum's remarried. It's not our - or even my house. Just somewhere I come during holidays." _

"_I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…I didn't know. I'm sorry Angelina." The bravado and cockiness eased out of his voice leaving just him, standing there looking suitably embarrassed._

_She didn't answer him, just reached up to pull his head down for a fierce, electric kiss. _

_It was the perfect way to describe it, electric. Every touch sent electric shocks through the other, every kiss was not enough, they each wanted more, Montague wanted her soul…wanted her to admit that she was deliriously in love with him. He couldn't even begin to understand what she was doing to him. He couldn't look away from her, she was so unbearably beautiful, her skin lit a soft gold, and her hands were pure magic on his skin. He dragged his mouth away from hers long enough to growl, "upstairs?" before devouring her lips once again, his hands playing with her hair. She hooked her legs around him and he stood walking up the stairs with her and dropped her onto the landing so she could lead him to her room, and to her bed where she wriggled out of her robes, and then watched him through heavy lidded eyes as he did the same and then leaning over her began to kiss every inch of her body, licking sometimes here, dragging his tongue there, and every second kiss would be his mouth, slanting over hers, owning her mouth…the passion telling her what he couldn't, and what he refused to admit to himself, that he was hopelessly, horribly in love with her. _

He had his choice of any of the eligible debutantes. He knew he was one of the more marketable ones, and one of the more lusted after, with his easy confidence, thinly veneered with arrogance, athletic form and too handsome face. His mother always tsked tsked he was 'just like your father', but he knew in his heart of hearts, that it wasn't so. For his father would never fall in love with a Gryff. Would consider that the ultimate of all weaknesses that a pure blood could succumb to. He would never feel the restlessness as a cool chill in his bones when he wasn't with her. He would never have that tight feeling of adrenaline, lust and bitterness curled up like a rubber band ball with the thought of her. A feeling that snapped to encompass them both when he was with her, and coiled up tighter and tighter every time he was without.

"_I should go."_

"_But you won't." He flung his arm out across her body possessively where she was lying stretched out along his couch with her head on his lap. She didn't attempt to move. A smile shimmered around his lips like a mirage, and she reached a finger up to trace his lower lip._

"_I'm meant to be meeting Katie and 'Licia for a drink. It's been a while since we've caught up."_

"_What have you told them?" He posed the question in a careless manner, as if indifferent to the answer, his fingers threading through her hair and fanning it out behind her head in a halo, all the while watching her through half lidded eyes, slivers of blue that slashed at her. _

"_That I'm having a torrid affair with a Quidditch superstar, who just happened to a former Slytherin. Oh yeah, did I mention that his father is one of the more notorious Death Eaters? Oh, and his brother is in Azkaban ? Oh yes, girls, you _**do**_ want to kill me? Go ahead, it isn't anything I haven't thought about before."_

"_Be nice." He chided, his face breaking into a smirk. "I've told you far too much about my family, babe."_

"_You're afraid I'm going to use it against you?" She raised an eyebrow and grinned at him tauntingly ._

"_I'm afraid you'll want to use it against me, one day…" He didn't meet her eyes and followed instead his fingers as they wove a steady pattern into her hair. She sat up then, and scooted back, so she was sitting on his lap, her forehead resting against his temple. "You know I'm not like that. I would never -"_

"_I know. I know. You love me."_

_Her head lifted off his and he could feel her staring steadily at him. He looked down. _

"_Yeah, I do. And sometimes, I don't know why."_

_He quirked his lips in a charming grin, "why Johnson, you know it's because I'm irresistible."_

"_Really, Montague. This is exhausting me. I'm always tired. It's everything. Just getting a little bit too much. This is like the fairy tale I hide away in until I have to get back to life again, and I hate it. I want _**this** _to be my life."_

"_You know I can't do that right now, Johnson."_

"_You _**can**_. It's your life, Christopher. Not your father's. His money may have done all this for you," Her eyes swept around the room before coming back to rest on him, "but he's not going to care what you do. He already has James under the thumb – he doesn't need you there too. And Chris, it's me too he's getting if he keeps you there."_

_She looked at her watch. "Shit. I better go. Otherwise I'll have to come up with a better excuse than the crap one I already have." She gathered up her jacket and slipped her shoes on. Montague didn't move. _

"_I'll catch you later?" she looked at him as she was shrugging on her jacket. He nodded._

_She dropped a kiss on his forehead and he wrapped an arm around her waist, keeping her between his legs. _

"_Johnson. I'm sorry."_

"_It's OK. I just want you to think about it."_

"_Ange – I didn't know you wanted -"_

"_Later, we'll talk later, OK, love? I have to run."_

Love. He knew it had to happen with her sooner or later. She was a girl. A Gryff girl, so it was doubly likely to happen. He didn't know why he tried to fool himself that it wouldn't.

He was in lust, of course. Just a Slytherin, desperate for a shag with the enemy, because she enthralled him. That was all. Pure physical lust. Strong lust. That was all he ever allowed himself to think. That was the safest thing for him to think.

Because, if it was anything more than that, he knew he was a dead man, because a man with two hearts had never been known to survive. One always had to give up. And quietly, oh so quietly, he hoped it wouldn't be the one she owned.


End file.
